If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Tomatoes

Anyone know why 95% of my cherry tomatoes are cracking before they're fully ripe? They started out doing great, had a few weeks of great Sweet 100s. Now I'm picking them when they're just barely turning color & ripen them inside. So sucks. All that work...

Also, started out with a few nice tomatoes from my plum tomato plants, the early girl & one other mis-labled plant that was supposed to be a plum but turned out to be some sort of big slicer. And a volunteer w/big cherries. Then they started appearing with big gouges around the stem ends... all of them except for the sweet 100s. Could not find, what I was sure were some big caterpillars. It was driving me crazy. Yesterday I was looking out the window & thought I saw... no! No way! Ran & got my binoculars & yes, watched 2 titmice go into my tomatoes & start pounding at them. I have never witnessed this. Ever.

My basil did, and is still doing, great.

Otherwise, I am done.

Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. ~ Steven Weinberg

I've had the same issue of cherry tomatoes splitting open. A web search says fluctuation in water. It does get real bad if there is lots of rain. And since there are predictions of very heavy rain for Monday and Tuesday, I will pick all I can and finish ripening in a paper bag.

The birdies love my tomatoes and peck big holes in many of them. I want to strangle those sweet little songbirds. We tried netting. A few hours after my husband put it around all the tomatoes, I went out to check. Omg!! There was a titmouse and hummingbird stuck in the netting and that little hummingbird was crying out loud!! Untangled the birds and threw the net out. A few years back when we were in a drought, there were crows coming and impaling large beefsteaks with their beaks and flying off with them.

Almost everything has signs of fungal diseases this year with all the humidity. I've tried using some organic sprays but nothing is working well as long as the humidity stays so high. Gardening in the Ozarks is not for sissies . Every year is something.

Yep - it's all of the moisture causing the split tomatoes. Also, chalet33333333 - it isn't necessary to put the maters in a paper bag to ripen. Just leave them out on the counter out of the sunlight. They'll ripen on out just fine like that.

True dat. No bag. If they rot in the bag, one does not see it. Rotting toms...uuuugh.
I leave em in a south window, no direct sun. I pick just b4 first frost and have toms
for thanksgiving.

Originally Posted by DaBee

Yep - it's all of the moisture causing the split tomatoes. Also, chalet33333333 - it isn't necessary to put the maters in a paper bag to ripen. Just leave them out on the counter out of the sunlight. They'll ripen on out just fine like that.

True dat too. Apples give off ethylene gas, which hastens maturity and reduces long term storability.
Just keep an eye on the inside of the bag ifn you wish to go that way.
One should not store apples with anything in the root cellar.

Originally Posted by celeste

Avocado, tomato & any other fruit ripens quickly if u put an apple in the paper bag.